Customers Report Instabilities with Xbox 360

The commercial launch of the Xbox 360 game console was high-scale, but not as massive as some assumed. Still, even though the supply is much lower than the demand, those who were lucky enough to get the gaming machine, now report about issues with stability and graphics artifacts.

“We’ve received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected,” a statement by Microsoft Corp. published by Next Generation web-site reads.

According to the official Xbox 360 web-site, the Xbox 360 console may not turn on, system error message in multiple languages may emerge, the console may not connect to the Xbox Live service using a wireless connection. In several forums, such as those on web-sites like Engadget and Team Xbox, users reported about graphics artifacts and other issues.

The company said that while there are many postings in various forums, the overall number of failures is not significant.

“The call rate is well below what you’d expect for a consumer electronics product of this complexity. As a percentage of the total number of Xbox 360 systems already in the field, these calls represent a very small fraction. That being said, there is no systemic issue with Xbox 360. Each incident is unique and these customer inquires are being handled on a case-by-case basis,” Microsoft said.

Microsoft Xbox 360 console is based around microprocessor developed by IBM, high-definition visual processing unit designed by ATI Technologies, I/O controller engineered by SiS and some other key components. The gaming machine will provide a broad set of multimedia capabilities in addition to games. Depending on the bundle, Microsoft Xbox 360 costs $299 or $399. The machine launches along with 18 game titles of various genres.